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CHAPTER XX.
An Evening's End

The next morning, Roberts' friends held an anxious conference. The Doctor, being left alone while his wife went out on household affairs, had, it seemed, risen from bed, dressed himself, and left the house. He had taken a few pounds, part of what Johnstone had returned to him, but no luggage. Nothing was gone except his revolver, which had lain on the mantelpiece, his wife having feared to take it away. In the absence of other explanation, it seemed most probable that he had suddenly determined to return to London, and Dr. Spink thought London the best place to look for him. Accordingly, Philip Hume at once started in pursuit; for all felt, though none of them liked to express the feeling, that Roberts was not in a state in which he could safely be trusted to look after himself. His wife was helpless with grief and bewilderment, and kindly Mrs. Hodge determined to spend the day with her, and return to Littlehill only late in the evening; thus at least proper attention would be secured to the helpless child and its hardly less helpless mother.

Not even these troubles could keep Dale from the Grange, and after dinner, with an apology to Nellie and Arthur, he announced his intention of strolling over to ask the Squire at what point in the proceedings his ode was to come. Nellie had a letter to write, or said she had, and Arthur Angell offered to bear Dale company part of the way, with a cigar.

The two men set out together, and Arthur did not leave his friend till they were at the Grange drive. Then he sauntered back, humming snatches of song between his puffs of smoke, and rejoicing in the glory of a full moon. He had almost reached the gate of Littlehill, when, to his surprise, he saw, a few yards from him, a figure that seemed familiar. He caught sight of it only for a moment, for the trees then came between; and yet he felt almost sure that the stealthily moving form was that of James Roberts. He stood watching to see him again, but he did not; and, going into the house, he told Nellie what he thought he had seen.

"Dr. Roberts going toward the Grange!" she exclaimed. "You must be mistaken."

"I don't think so. It looked like him."

Nellie was not inclined to think he could be right, but she agreed that Arthur had better go and tell Dr. Spink of his suspicions. Arthur went off on his errand, and she sat by the fire alone.

Abandoning herself to reverie, she idly and sadly reviewed the events of the days since her return. How joyfully she had come! But it had hardly been as good as she hoped. Dale was very kind, when he was there. But why did he leave her so much – leave her to Arthur Angell? And ah, why did he go so much to the Grange? It was all far pleasanter before he came to Denborough, before he knew these great people – yes, and before this Dr. Roberts was there to worry them. The thought of Roberts carried her mind in a new direction. What a strange man he was! And his poor wife! She could not think why he had become so odd and so unfriendly. Yet it was so. He seemed absolutely to hate Dale; she had seen him look at him so fiercely. Dale had not ruined him; he had ruined himself. He was mad to blame Dale. Ah, wasn't he mad? – She sat up suddenly in her chair. What if Arthur were right? What if it were he? Why was he going to the Grange! Dale was there. What was that they said about a pistol? Ah – if —

Without another thought she rose, and as she was, in her evening dress and thin shoes, she ran out of the house and along the wooded road toward the Grange. A terrible idea was goading her on. He was mad; he hated Dale; he had a revolver with him. Oh, could she be in time? They would wonder at her. What did that matter? Her love, her lord was – or might be – in danger. She pressed on, till she panted and had to pause; then, with breath but half recovered, over rough and smooth ground, knowing no difference, she sped on her way.

Dale's talk with the Squire was not long; but the Squire's daughter came to the door to bid him good-night, and was easily persuaded to walk a little way down the drive with him. She went farther than she meant, as was natural enough; for she was leaning on his arm, and he was telling her, in that caressing voice of his, that all his life and heart and brain and power were hers, and lavishing sweet words on her.

"I must go back, Dale," she said. "They will wonder what has become of me."

"Not yet."

"Yes, I must."

"Ah, my darling, how soon will it be when we need never part? How soon? I mean how long, till then! Do you love me?"

"You know, Dale."

"What was it you said the other day – was it only yesterday? – that you would die for me?"

"Yes."

"Ah, Jan, my sweetest Jan, that you should say that to me!"

They said no more, but did not part yet. At last he suffered her to tear herself away.

"I shall run back through the shrubbery," she whispered.

"I shall wait."

"Yes, wait. When I get in, I will show you a light from my window. A good-night light, Dale."

She sped away down a side-path, and Dale leaned against a tree, in the moonlight, fixing his lovelorn eyes on the window.

As Janet turned down her path, she rushed, in her rapid flight, against a man who stood there in lurking.

Dale's side was to him, but he was watching Dale, with a sneering smile on his lips. When she saw him, she started back. In a moment he seized her shoulder with one hand, and pressed a pistol to her head.

"If you make a sound, I'll kill you," he hissed. "Don't stir – don't scream."

She was paralyzed with surprise and fright. It was Roberts, and – what did he mean?

He pushed her slowly before him, the revolver still at her head, till they reached the drive. Dale's eyes were set on his mistress' window, and their feet made no noise on the grass-edges of the drive. Roberts gave a low laugh, and whispered in her ear.

"He came to see you, did he? The traitor! Not a sound! Wait till he turns! wait till he turns! I want him to see me. When he turns, I shall shoot him."

At last she understood. The madman meant to kill Dale.

He would kill him, before Dale could defend himself. She must warn him – at any cost, she must warn him. If it cost her —

"Not a sound," hissed Roberts. "A sound and you are dead; your head blown to bits – blown to bits!" And again he laughed, but noiselessly.

It was her life against his. Ah, she must warn him – she must cry out! But the cold barrel pressed against her temple, and the madman's voice hissed in her ear:

"Blown to bits – blown to bits!"

She couldn't die, she couldn't die! not like that – not blown to bits! Perhaps he would miss; Dale might escape. She couldn't die!

He advanced a little nearer, keeping on the grass-edge and pushing her before him, still whispering to her death and its horrors, if she made a sound. It was too horrible; she could not bear it. Ah! he was measuring the distance. She must cry out! She opened her lips. Quick as thought, he pressed the barrel to her head. She could not, could not do it; and, with a groan, she sank, a senseless heap, on the ground at his feet.

Suddenly a shot rang out, and a woman's cry. Dale started from his reverie, to see a woman a step or two from him; a woman, tottering, swaying, falling forward on her face, as he rushed to support her in his arms.

There was a shout of men's voices, and, following on it, another report, and James Roberts fell beside Janet Delane, his head, as he had said, blown to bits; and two panting men, who had run all the way from Denborough, were raising Janet and looking if she were dead, and then laying her down again and turning to where Nellie Fane lay in lifeless quiet in Dale's arms.

"A minute sooner and we should have been in time," said Arthur Angell to Dr. Spink, as the Doctor pushed Dale aside and knelt over Nellie.

And Dale, relieved, ran at all his speed to where Janet lay and threw himself on his knees beside her.

"My love, open your eyes," he cried.

CHAPTER XXI.
"The Other Girl Did."

On the afternoon of the morrow, Philip Hume, who, summoned by a telegram from Dr. Spink, had come down to Denborough by the first train he could catch, put on his hat, and, lighting his pipe, took a turn up and down the road that ran by Littlehill. Since his coming he had been in the house, and the house had seemed almost to stifle him. He had a man's feeling of uselessness in the face of a sick room; he could do nothing to help Nellie Fane in her struggle for life; he only hindered the people who could do something. Nor did he succeed much better with those whose ailments were of the mind. Arthur Angell sat in one room, suspecting now that, whether Nellie lived or died, his dearest hopes were dead. Dale, in another room, strode unrestingly to and fro, waiting for Wilson to come back from the messages he kept sending him on, now upstairs to Nellie's door, now down the town to Ethel Roberts', now, and most often, to the Grange; and always Wilson, his forehead wet and his legs weary, came back and said:

"Please, sir, there is no change."

Once Nellie had been conscious, had asked "Is he safe?" and, receiving her answer, had closed her eyes again. Ethel Roberts was in no danger; the shock would pass. Of Janet there came no news, save that she was alone with her mother, and cried to be alone even from her mother. James Roberts, in his frenzy, had indeed wrought havoc, and Philip, as he walked and smoked, vehemently, though silently, cursed the ways of this world.

Presently Mrs. Hodge came out in her bonnet.

"Nellie is well looked after," she said. "I am going down to see how that poor little Roberts is."

Philip did not offer to go with the good woman. He watched her heavy figure hastening down the hill, wondering that she seemed almost happy in her busy services of kindness. He could do nothing but fret, and smoke, and try to keep out of the way.

A smart brougham drove up. It stopped by him, and Tora Smith jumped out.

"How is she?" she cried.

"Spink thinks she will pull through," answered Philip; "but of course she's in great danger still."

"May I go to her?" asked Tora.

"She sees no one," he replied in surprise.

"Oh, I don't mean to see her. I mean to stay and help – to nurse her, you know."

"It is very kind of you: she has her mother and a nurse."

"Oh, won't you let me?"

"It does not rest with me. But why should you?"

"I – I once thought such horrid things of her. And – wasn't it splendid?"

Philip looked kindly at her.

"That will please her," he said, "and her friends."

"Mayn't I help?"

"I tell you what: poor Mrs. Roberts has no one but a hired nurse. Mrs. Hodge has run down for a minute, but of course she can't leave her daughter long."

"You mean I ought to go to her?"

"One can't even be kind in the way one likes best," said Philip.

"Well, I will. But I should have loved to be with Miss Fane. I can't tell you how I feel about her. I think people who think evil things of other people ought to be beaten, Mr. Hume."

"Doubtless, but justice flags. You can't expect me to beat you, Miss Smith."

Tora smiled for a minute; then she wiped her eyes again, and asked gravely:

"Are you never serious?"

"Yes; I am serious now. Go to that poor woman; consider doing that in the light of a beating."

"You'll let Miss Fane know I – I – "

"Yes; and Dale. What a terrible facer for our celebrations, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes. Harry has ridden over to see Lord Cransford about it. Mr. Delane wants the thing put off, if possible."

"Can you put off a Prince? But I suppose he'll be only too glad not to be bored with it."

"You know Janet is in a dreadful state? Poor girl! It must have been awful for her. The man had hold of her! Well, I shall go. Good-by. I shall run up here again to-morrow."

The putting off of the Prince, in spite of Philip's doubt of its constitutional possibility, was managed: for the ceremony could hardly take place without Mr. Delane's presence, as he had been the inspiring force of the whole movement which had resulted in the Institute; and Mr. Delane felt it utterly out of the question for him to take any part in such festivities, in view of the dreadful occurrence in his grounds and of his daughter's serious condition. The doctors, indeed, told him that she had stood the shock remarkably well; they would not have been surprised to find her much worse. Her reason was unshaken, and, after the first night anyhow, the horror of the madman's grip and voice had left her. She did not, waking or sleeping, for she slept sometimes, dream that she was again in his hands, face to face with death; and Dr. Spink congratulated the Squire and Mrs. Delane on a good prospect of a total recovery. Yet Mrs. Delane and the Squire were not altogether comforted. For Janet lay from morning to evening on her bed, almost motionless and very quiet, whenever anyone was in the room. She asked once or twice after her fellow-sufferers, but, except for that, and answering questions, she never spoke but to say:

"I think I could sleep if I were alone."

Then Mrs. Delane would go away, trying to believe the excuse.

There are not many of us who would feel warranted in being very hard on a man who had failed in such a trial as had befallen Janet Delane: in a woman, failure would seem little other than a necessary consequence of her sex. Death, sudden, violent, and horrible, searches the heart too closely for anyone to feel sure that his would be found sound to the core – not risk of death, for that most men will, on good cause and, even more cheerfully, in good company, meet and face. It is certainty that appalls; and it had been certain death that had awaited Janet's first cry. And yet she would not be comforted. She had stopped to think how certain it was; then she failed. The mistake was in stopping to think at all. The other girl – the girl he did not love, but who, surely, loved him with a love that was love indeed – had not stopped to think whether the bullet could or might or must hit her. She had not cared which; it had been enough for her that it might hit the man she loved, unless she stood between to stop it, and she had stood between. How could Janet excuse her cowardice by telling herself of the certainty of death, when, had she not been a coward, she would never have stayed to know whether death were certain or not? If she ever could have deluded herself like that, what the other girl did made it impossible. The other girl – so she always thought of Nellie – held up a mirror wherein Janet saw her own littleness. And yet he had loved her, not the other; her life belonged to him, the other's did not; she had proclaimed proudly, but an instant before, that she would die for him, and he had praised her for saying it. He would know now what her protestations were worth. He would be amused to think that it was not Janet Delane – the Janet who was always exhorting him to noble thoughts – who was proud in the pride of her race – not she who had dared death for him; but that other, so far beneath her, whom she had not deigned to think a rival. Ah, but why, why had she not called? Surely God would have given her one moment to be glad in, and that would have been enough.

She sat up in bed, the coverings falling from her, and her black hair streaming over her white night-dress. Clasping her hands over her knees, she looked before her out of the window. She could see the tree where Dale had stood and the spot where she had fallen; she could see the fresh red gravel, put down to hide the stains, and the gardener's rake, flung down where he had used it. He must have gone to tea – gone to talk it all over with his wife and his friends, to wonder why Miss Janet had not called out, why she had left it to the other girl, why she had fainted, while the other had saved him. They would talk of "poor Miss Janet," and call the other a "rare plucked 'un" – she knew their way. Nobody would ever call her that – not her father again, who used to boast that Janet, like all his house, feared nothing but dishonor, and would make as good a soldier as the son he had longed for in vain. Her mother had come and called her "a brave girl." Why did people think there was any good in lies? She meant it kindly, but it was horrible to hear it. Lies are no use. Let them call her a coward, if they wanted to speak the truth. They all thought that. Dale thought it; Dale, who must be admiring that other girl's gallantry, and wondering why he had not loved her, instead of loving a girl who talked big, and, when danger came, fainted – and stood by to see him die.

Of course he could not go on loving her after this. He would feel, everybody must feel, that he owed his life to the girl who had saved him, and must give it to her. Very likely he would come and pretend to want her still. He would think it right to do that, though it would really be kinder just to let her drop. She would understand. Nobody knew he had spoken to her; perhaps nobody need; it would not seem so bad to people who did not know she had promised to be his wife. Not that it mattered much what people thought. She knew what she was, and – she must let him go, she must let him go. And here, for the first time, she buried her head in her pillow and sobbed.

Mrs. Delane came in.

"Why, Janet dearest, you've nothing over you! You'll catch cold. What's the matter, darling? Are you frightened?"

There it was! Everybody thought she was frightened now.

"There is a message from Mr. Bannister, darling. He wants so much to see you, and the doctor thinks it would do you no harm. Do you think you could dress and see him?"

"He wants to see me?"

"Why, yes, dear. Of course, Jan. I know, my dear."

"To leave her and come and see me?"

"Miss Fane? Oh, she's going on very well. There's no reason he shouldn't come over here. You would like to see him, Jan?"

"Tell him to go away – tell him to go to her – tell him to leave me alone."

"But, Jan, dearest – "

"Oh, mamma, mamma, do leave me alone!"

Mrs. Delane went and told the messenger that Miss Delane might see no one for a day or two; she was still too agitated. Then she sought her husband and told him of their daughter's words.

"She must be a little queer still," said the Squire, with anxiety. "Don't be worried, Mary. She's a strong girl, and she'll soon throw it off."

But she could not throw it off – not that thought which had burned into her breast; and all night, by the light of the moon, she sat and looked at the tree and the fresh gravel, the spot where her honor and her love had called on her, and called in vain.

CHAPTER XXII.
The Fitness of Things

If anything could have consoled Market Denborough for the certain postponement and possible loss of the Duke of Mercia's visit, it would have been the cause of these calamities. Its citizens were not more hard-hearted than other people, and they bestowed much sympathy on Nellie Fane, who, out of the competitors, was easily elected the heroine of the incident; but neither were they more impervious to the charms of excitement, of gossip, and of notoriety. The reporters and the artists who had been told off to describe and depict the scene of the royal visit did not abandon their journey, but substituted sketches of the fatal spot, of the Grange, of Littlehill, and of the actors in the tragedy; while interviews with the Mayor, and anybody else who knew, or knew someone who knew about the circumstances, or professed to do either, amply supplied the place which the pageant and the speeches had been destined to fill. And if the occurrence excited such interest in the great London papers, the broadsheets and columns of the local journals were a sight to behold. The circulation of the Standard went up by more than a hundred; while the Chronicle announced, it must be admitted to a somewhat skeptical world, that its weekly issue had exhausted three editions, and could no longer be obtained at the booksellers' or the office. The assertion, however, being untested, passed, and everyone allowed that young Mingley's detailed account of poor Roberts' last words to Dale Bannister, before he fired, were perfect in verisimilitude, which, under the regrettable circumstance of Mingley's absence, and of no such words having been uttered, was all that could be expected. Mingley was puffed up, demanded a rise of salary, got it, and married Polly Shipwright, the young lady at the "Delane Arms." So the ill wind blew Mingley good. Yet the editor of the Chronicle was not satisfied, and as a further result of Mingley's activity, he inserted an article the following week, in which he referred, with some parade of mystery, to the romantic character of the affair. It was not only in fiction, he remarked, that love had opportunities for displaying itself in heroism, nor, it was to be earnestly hoped, only in the brains of imaginative writers that affection and gratitude found themselves working together toward a joyful consummation. Denborough knew and admired its gifted fellow-townsman, and Denborough had been a witness of the grace and charm of the young lady who had shed such luster on her sex. Accordingly, Denborough waited the result with some confidence. Into this personal side of the matter the Standard did not try to follow its rival. Mr. Delane controlled the Standard, and he forbade any such attempt, on grounds of careful generality. But the article in the Chronicle was quite enough; it expressed what everyone had been thinking, and very soon the whole town was expecting to hear, simultaneously, that Nellie was out of danger, and that she had given her hand to Dale Bannister. The theory was so strongly and unhesitatingly accepted that the two or three who, mainly out of a love of paradox, put their heads on one side and asked how Miss Delane came to be out in the garden with Dale Bannister, were pooh-poohed and told that they merely showed their ignorance of the usages of society; whereupon they went home and grumbled to their wives, but were heard no more in public places.

Dale Bannister flung the Chronicle down on the table with a muttered oath, asking the eternally-asked, never-to-be-answered question, why people could not mind their own business – an unjust query in this case, for it is a reporter's business to mind other people's business. He had just come down from his first interview with Nellie. She was mending rapidly, and was now conscious, although any reference to the events of the fatal night was sternly forbidden; he was not even allowed to thank the friend who, happily, had only risked, not lost, her life for him. He had whispered his joy at finding her doing well, and she had pressed his hand in answer; more than that vigilant attendants prevented. Then he had come downstairs, picked up the Chronicle in the hall, read the article, and gone into the smoking room, where he had found Arthur Angell sitting by the fire, his hands deep in his pockets and his shoulders up to his ears, a picture of woe.

"What infernal nonsense!" said Dale, with a vexed laugh. "Do you see how this fellow disposes of us, Arthur?"

"Yes, I saw," said Arthur gloomily.

"I suppose they're bound to say that. The public loves romance."

"I think it's very natural they should say it. Why did she follow you? Why did she risk her life? Why did she ask after you the first moment she was conscious?"

"No one but me was being murdered," suggested Dale, with a rather uneasy smile.

"We left her here. Why did she go out at all? But it's too plain. I saw it before I had been here a day."

"Saw what, man?" asked Dale, passing by Arthur's questionable assertion.

"Why, that Nellie – you know. I don't know what you feel, but I know what she feels. It's rough on me having me down – "

"I never thought of such a thing," said Dale quickly.

"Oh, I suppose not; though how you didn't – I say, now, before you came to Denborough, didn't you?"

"I – I don't think so. We were great friends."

Arthur shook his head, and Dale poked the little bit of fire in an impatient way.

"How damned crooked things go!" he said.

Arthur rose and said in a decided tone:

"Well, I'm out of it. She saved your life, and she's in love with you. It seems to me your duty's pretty plain. You must drop your other fancy."

"My other fancy?" exclaimed Dale in horror. Lived there a man who could call his love for Janet a "fancy"?

"You'd break her heart," said Arthur, who thought of no one but his lady-love in his unselfish devotion.

It crossed Dale's mind to say that the situation seemed to involve the breaking of one heart at least, if Arthur were right; but he thought he had no right to speak of Janet's feelings, well as he knew them. He threw the poker down with a clang.

"Take care – you'll disturb her."

This annoyed Dale.

"My good fellow," he remarked, "we're not all, except you, entirely indifferent whether she lives or dies. I might throw pokers about all day – and I feel inclined to – without her hearing me in the blue room."

"Oh, I beg pardon," said Arthur, turning to the window and looking out.

He saw a stout man coming up the hill. It was the Mayor of Denborough, and he was evidently making for Littlehill. When he was ushered into the smoking room, he explained that he had come to ask after Miss Fane's progress.

"The town, Mr. Bannister, sir," he said, "is takin' a great interest in the young lady."

"I am glad to say she has, we think, turned the corner," said Dale.

"That's happy news for all – and you first of all, sir."

The Mayor might merely have meant that Dale's feelings would be most acute, as Nellie had received her wound in his service; but there was a disconcerting twinkle in the Mayor's eye.

"Mrs. Roberts," the Mayor continued, "is doin' first rate. After all, it's a riddance for her, sir. Have you any news from the Grange?"

"I hear there is no change in Miss Delane. She still suffers from the shock."

"Poor young lady! I hear the Captain's back at the Warren, sir."

"What?"

"Captain Ripley, sir. Back at home."

"Oh!"

The Mayor was bursting with suppressed gossip on this point also, but the atmosphere was most repressive. He looked round in despair for another opening, and his eye fell on Arthur Angell.

"Seen the Chronicle, sir?" he asked. "That Mingley's a sharp young chap. Still I don't 'old – hold with all that talk about people. Did you say you'd seen it, sir?"

"Yes, I've seen it. It's mostly lies."

"He, he!" chuckled the Mayor. "You're right, sir."

A long pause ensued before the Mayor very reluctantly took his hat.

"I hope we shall see Miss Fane about soon, sir?" he said.

"Oh, I hope so. I think so, if nothing goes wrong."

"She must be proud and happy, that young lady, sir. As I said to my daughters, says I: 'Now, girls, which of you is goin' to save your young man's life?' And my wife, Mrs. Hedger, sir, she put in: 'None of you, I'll be bound, if you don't – '"

The anecdote was lost, for Dale interrupted:

"Let me see you as far as the gate," and pushed the Mayor's walking-stick into his hand.

Having got rid of the Mayor, Dale did not hasten to return to Arthur Angell. At this moment, exasperated as he was, everything about his friend annoyed him – his devotion, his unselfishness, his readiness to accept defeat himself, his indiscreet zeal on behalf of his mistress. His despair for himself, and his exhortation to Dale, joined in manifesting that he neither possessed himself nor could understand in another what a real passion was. If he did or could, he would never have used that word "fancy." How could people speak of friendship or gratitude, or both together, as if they were, or were in themselves likely to lead to, love? You did not love a woman because you esteemed her. If you loved her, you might esteem her – or you might not; anyhow, you worshiped her. Yet these peddling Denborough folk were mapping out his course for him. And Arthur Angell croaked about broken hearts.

Suddenly a happy thought struck him, a thought which went far to restore his equanimity. These people, even that excellent Arthur, spoke in ignorance. At the most, they – those who knew anything – supposed that he had a "fancy" for Janet. They had no idea that his love had been offered and accepted, that he was plighted to her by all the bonds of honor and fidelity. This exacting gratitude they harped upon might demand a change of nascent inclinations; it would not require, nor even justify, broken promises, and the flinging back of what a man had asked for and received. Dale's step grew more elastic and his face brighter as he realized that, in reality, on a sane view of the position, duty and pleasure went hand in hand, both pointing to the desired goal, uniting to free him from any such self-sacrifice as Arthur Angell had indicated. If Arthur were right about Nellie's feelings, and if he had been a free man, he might have felt some obligation on him, or at least have chosen, to make the child happy, but as it was —

"I must be just before I'm generous," he said to himself, and added, with a shamefaced laugh, "and I happen to like justice best."

At this moment a servant in the Grange livery rode up, touching his hat, and handed him a note. It was from Janet, though her writing was so tremulous as to be scarcely recognizable. He tore it open and read: